Mother Says She Put Son in Basement Before Mauling

SAN FRANCISCO — The mother of the boy fatally mauled in his Sunset District home said Saturday that she shut her son in the basement to protect him from the family's pit bulls before the attack.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Maureen Faibish said she ordered her 12-year-old son, Nicholas, to stay in the basement while she did errands June 3, the day he was attacked by one or both of the dogs.

"I put him down there, with a shovel on the door," said Faibish, according to the newspaper. "He had a bunch of food. And I told him, 'Stay down there until I come back.' Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me."

Faibish said she was concerned that the male dog, Rex, was acting possessive because the female, Ella, was in heat.

Home alone, Nicholas Faibish apparently found a way to open the basement door. That's when his mom believes that he walked in on the dogs while they were mating and was attacked by Rex.

"It was Rex. I know it in my heart," Faibish said. "My younger dog [Ella] was in heat and anyone who came near her, Rex saw as a threat. He may have been trying to mate. It was a freak accident. It was just the heat of the moment."

Despite her concerns about Rex that day, Faibish told the newspaper: "My kids got along great with" the dogs. "We were never seeing any kind of violent tendencies."

Faibish returned midafternoon to discover her son's body.

She said she still loved Rex but said she would never want him back in her house.

"I told them I wanted him put down," she said. "I think of Rex as someone who molested my child, murdered my child."